Arranged Mafia Marriage

Theresa

“Uh, I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

I blink rapidly. Why is he angry? Is it because I fell asleep while waiting for him to wake up? No, that doesn’t make sense. After the intruder had shoved me aside, I had hit my head and blacked out. I had woken up in another room in the hospital to find a nurse dressing my wounds. They had offered me painkillers, which I hadn’t wanted to take, but I had finally relented in the hope that it would reduce my headache. The pills helped, but they made me drowsy, which is why I had fallen asleep in the chair, and had woken up to find him glaring at me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says in a hard voice.

Goosebumps pop on my skin. Hell, why is it that my body responds this way to him? I swallow, push myself to my feet. “Considering you are flat on your back and not even able to walk without help, I don’t think you have much say in the matter, do you?”

His lips firm, “Where’s Luca?”

“He took a break.” I gather my hair over one shoulder-damn it, why do I keep losing my hair ties?-then walk over to stand next to him. “You’re feeling better, I take it?”

“I’ll feel better when I am out of this goddam hospital.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” I sniff, “The color of this hospital gown is playing havoc with your complexion.”

“Eh?” He stares at me as if I have grown a second head. “What do you mean?”

“Just that you, ah, look pale. I mean, you are still tanned, of course. In fact, your skin color definitely shows that you spend a lot of time outside, but the hospital gown is a dirty cream color. Of course, flowers in that color look so much better.”

“Flowers?” He blinks.

“I own a flower shop. I’m a florist, you know? I specialize in tulips. Did you know there are more than 3000 registered varieties of tulips in the world? Of course, I don’t showcase all of them, but it’s my dream to do so one day. I’ll have to wait until my flower shop makes a lot more money, considering some of these tulips are so rare, they go at $2500 a bulb.”

He’s staring at me as if I have grown another head or sprouted a flower… a tulip flower, to be exact. Argh. What the hell am I doing, blathering like an idiot? Why does he make me so nervous that I seem to blurt out whatever comes into my head?”

“Umm, okay, now that I have thoroughly embarrassed myself…” my voice trails off. “Forget it.” I turn to leave.

“What’s the name of your flower boutique?”

I pause. Did he refer to it as a flower boutique? That’s really creative. No one has ever referred to it like that before. I glance at him over my shoulder. “Do you really want to know?”

He merely tilts his head. The silence stretches. My skin begins to feel too tight for the rest of my body. A bead of sweat slides down the valley between my breasts and I know I have to speak before I lose the ability to form words. “The Tilting Tulip,” I murmur.

“A fan of Don Quixote, I take it?”

My gaze widens. Oh, my god! Nobody, and I mean nobody, has guessed the origin of that name, to date. Not even Xander. Not even Elsa, my friend and sole employee who has helped me with the flower shop almost since the day it opened. So how did this guy figure it out? It scares me more than the fact that he has such an uncanny resemblance to Xander.

“Umm, okay. Bye, I have to leave now.” I spin around, dart toward the doorway.

“Theresa,” he growls, “get back here.” His voice chafes over my nerve endings and does funny things to my insides. My belly trembles. My core clenches. Moisture beads my pussy. Hell, the man is on his back, trying to recover from a coma, but he’s far from helpless. He only has to call me by my name and I want to throw myself down at his feet and beg him to lick me all over… Especially in that throbbing place between my thighs. Definitely across my breasts. Maybe I could beg him to pluck at my nipples and tweak them hard until I came. Maybe I could-

“Theresa.”

I squeak. “Y…yes,” I stutter as I bite down on my lower lip.

“Turn around and face me.”

My steps slow until I come to a halt. I draw in a breath, then turn and meet his gaze. Those blue eyes, so like Xander’s…yet not. The look in them is so much more intense, like I have his entire attention. Did Xander ever look at me that way? Like I was the only one in the world and he couldn’t take his attention off of me?

“Why are you here?” He scowls, “What do you want from me?”

I want you to be Xander. I want you to be the man I loved and lost, the one who I had hoped would one day love me back. The one who my heart still belongs to because I’ve had a crush on him for so long that I no longer know how to go on without him.

“I…” I twist my fingers together, “I want you to get better soon.”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Is that all?”

No.

No.

“Yes,” I nod. “You saved my life and I don’t like seeing you in pain because of it.”

“You have a soft heart,” his lips twist, “but I am not sure it warranted my taking a bullet for you.”

I gape.

“You see, I am not the kind of man who’d do something so selfless. And I definitely would not put my life at stake for someone else, especially not someone who-”

I narrow my gaze on him, “Someone who?”

“Someone like you, who’s clearly, not the kind of woman I am normally attracted to.”

I open and shut my mouth, “Jesus, are you hearing yourself? For someone who can’t even pee by himself at the moment, you sure have a big ego.”

“Not the only thing that’s big.” He smirks.

I throw up my hands, “You are a horrible man, and your jokes are sexist.”

“So I have been told.” His grin widens.

Goddamn it, he’s even more attractive when he smiles. His features light up in a way Xander’s never did. Xander had been more introspective, more troubled about the state of the world, more brooding about his own internal conflict, while Axel… There’s a recklessness to him that comes through in the gleam in his eyes. In how he sprawls back in the bed, making the entire space feel too small for him. How he sucks up all the oxygen in the air, how he draws my attention to his face, to his chest, the length of his body partially hidden under the sheet. Even though his muscles will need rehab to regain his strength, thanks to the coma he’s been in… Still, there’s an aura of power that to clings to him, a cloak of dominance that seems to cover him from head to toe, a lazy authority that oozes from his very pores. It’s as if he’s got the best of all the Sovrano brothers, and more. All that charisma locked away and ready to be unleashed on some poor unsuspecting mortal like me. Hell, without even trying, he’s positively overpowering me… How the hell will he be when he’s on his feet and dressed to kill? I’ll probably combust if I am in his presence then. Not that I am not all hot and bothered now. A bead of sweat runs down between my breasts and I shiver.

“Hey.” He snaps his fingers and I blink. “You okay?” he asks.

“Don’t I look okay?” I demand.

“No need to get defensive; I was just being polite.”

“I see you are awake?” Both Axel and I turn toward the door.

Luca swaggers in, then throws himself down on the chair I recently vacated. “This one,” he jerks his chin in my direction, “deserves a medal. Not only has she been by your bedside since you were brought out of surgery, but the first thing she did after regaining consciousness earlier was ask about you.”

My cheeks flush. “I was simply doing what was right,” I mutter.

“But you might be wasting your attentions on the wrong guy,” Luca warns.

I glance from Luca to Axel, whose face is wiped of all expression. If that offended him, he isn’t showing it. Damn, but it’s so difficult to get a read on this man. He seems to keep everything bottled up inside… Except for his ego, of course, which pushes him to make stupid remarks like he had earlier.

“I’m not sure that’s a nice thing to say,” I scowl at Luca.

“It’s a fact.” He raises a shoulder. “Best to say what’s on my mind, right?”

“Don’t let us stop you,” Axel says dryly.

“You couldn’t, even if you wanted to.” Luca looks him up and down pointedly, “How long is it going to be before you get on your feet again?”

“The doctor thinks it’s going to be at least a month of intensive rehab. I bet him I’ll be walking again in two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” I turn on him, “You were unconscious for two weeks. No way, can you regain your muscle strength and get back on your feet that quickly.”

“You challenging me, Sunshine?” He drawls.

And whoa, what’s with that nickname? I shoot Luca a glance and find him absorbed in something on his phone.

“I am not challenging you.” I turn to Axel. “It’s just,” I lower my voice, “I don’t want you to push yourself so hard that you end up hurting yourself.”

“You took care of that already, didn’t you? Doubt I can hurt myself further.”

My heart slams into my chest. I stare at him and feel the tell-tale pressure of tears behind my eyes.

“You really are a selfish prick, you know that? I was just worried about you-”

“Don’t be.” He reclines further back into the pillows, looking for all the world like he’s the master of all he surveys. “I can take care of myself.”

“I have no doubt. It’s just, you are hurt and-”

“I’ll mend. I have strong healing powers.”

“I am sure, but-”

“I understand Xander is dead,” he drawls. “Did you know him well?”

I nod. “He was, he was…” Truth is, I am not sure what he was to me. Not my boyfriend, not my lover… I am not even sure he reciprocated my affections, but since I had first set eyes on him, I had been sure that our destinies were interlinked. I had dreamt of the day that I would marry him.

“Did you love him?” Axel drums his fingers on the bed. “Is that why you want to take care of me, because I look so similar to him?”

“I… I did love him,” I admit, “but that’s not why I am here.”

“Oh?” He tilts his head, “Why else would you spend so much time by the bedside of a perfect stranger taking care of him?”

“Maybe it’s because you saved my life and this is my way of thanking you?” I tip up my chin.

He arches an eyebrow, “By spending every moment of the last two weeks at my side? I think not.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he shakes his head.

“I am not him, Theresa. I never will be him, so if you think by hanging around me you can transfer the fixation you had on him to me, then you are mistaken.”

A hot sensation stabs at my chest. My heart feels like it’s going to break into a million pieces. My stomach hurts and I fold my arms around myself. “You’re right. You’re not Xander. Xander would never have been this unkind to me.” I swallow down the tears that threaten to overflow. “I must have been crazy to think that you could have ever held a candle to him. You…you’re a terrible man. You may look like him, but you’ll never be h…him.” My voice hitches. Don’t cry, don’t you dare cry before this horrible man. I turn and rush out of the door.